Disclaimers: I disclaim them all, but wish I didn't have to.

A/N: Warning for smut minor smut in the beginning (you can skip the first ¼ or so) and the poorly worded sex discussions … Remember, Manny is an adult male and has all of the habits, proclivities, and appetites that come with his gender. He is upfront, frank, and unapologetic for his life and how he chooses to live it.

Expect the Unexpected 09
Manny's Story
By Alfonsina

We were supposed to have a meet and greet with Chris Russo at the house so he could see my work and further the cover. It was scheduled for late Saturday afternoon, I had to cancel Mimi before hand; I'd forgotten about our regularly scheduled time.

"Mimi, baby, it's Manny," I said into the phone. "I can't make it tonight."

"But I've been so good waiting for you; it's been forever. I need you, please?" she begged.

"I can't get out of it and I don't know when I can reschedule."

"Don't you want to spank my bottom when you have me bent over the sofa?"

"Oh, yeah," I said as I walked the phone back into my bedroom.

"Don't you want to pull on my hair while you fuck me?" she breathed into the phone.

I unzipped my fly and took out my cock. "Mmm. What I really wanted to do tonight was," I said slowly stroking myself.

"Um-hum?" she dragged out every vowel, it went on forever and the longer it went on the stiffer my dick got.

"Fuck your tits and come on your face." I cradled the phone to my ear as I stretched out on the bed, so I could have use of both of my hands.

"Ooooh, I love it when you do that."

"But I can't, not tonight."

"Soon?"

"Yeah baby, soon. I'll call you."

I had just disconnected the call when I heard Stephanie pull into the driveway. She had her own key and let herself in.

"Hey Manny, you home? Hey the place looks really good. Hector and Ella did an amazing job," Stephanie called from the kitchen. The voice was coming closer until it was almost to the bedroom "I came early because I wanted to know if you needed a hand …"

I hadn't closed the door to the bedroom and now the goods were on display. Fine, I had wanted to break the tension before dinner anyway.

"Watch, help or leave," I said beginning to pant. I kind of liked the fact she was a deer stuck in headlights; she couldn't turn away and I wouldn't break eye contact. I wanted to push her limits; hell I wanted to find out where her limits were and she how flexible they might be, this is an easy test.

"Ahh. Obviously you don't need my help."

"I don't know, your assistance would be worthwhile," I said speeding up my strokes.

The stare down continued. It usually doesn't take me long when I'm alone to jack off, but I decided to take my time to see how long she'd watch. I wanted to see if her eyes would darken or if it her breathing would become more ragged; yes to both. Ten minutes later, she was still watching me when I came over my own belly.

"You still want to lend a hand?" I asked getting off the bed and stripping off my shirt. I wadded it up into a ball and shot it into the laundry basket.

"What kind of a hand?" she asked licking her lips, her voice sounded hesitant and dry.

"I need help finishing dinner," I said.

"Why did you do that?" she asked indicating my earlier activity.

"Shine the pole?" I shrugged. "I've got needs and I've been forced to forfeit my other outlets until this job is over. Unless you want to help me deal with my needs, live with it. I'm a guy and I masturbate. I'll probably do it while you're around depending on how this job goes."

"Great. Can't you confine it to the bathroom or something?"

"It's my house. You were early. You didn't wait for me to acknowledge you. I was in the right."

She moved her head up and down slowly to acknowledge that she'd heard me.

"If you want me to help you with any pent up frustrations, I'd be most willing. Or I can take you toy shopping. If you let me watch, I'll even buy you a couple of toys."

"No, but thanks. Changing subjects, I brought a German chocolate cake and some ice cream for dessert," she said. "I'll put the ice cream in the freezer."

I grabbed a clean shirt hanging from the door of the closet and said, "Are you sure you won't let me help you pick out something special? I've got great taste in toys. Oh and you yourself said that the place needs to look like newlyweds live here. It needs to smell of sex, too. Now it does. What kind of ice cream?"

She shook her head as she walked past me into the kitchen. "Wash your hands," she admonished.

We walked into the kitchen together, I was buttoning my shirt and indicated the crock pot on the counter. "Machaca for dinner tonight after Chris leaves."

"What's that? It smells good."

"It's kind of a spicy, shredded beef. It reminds me of home. If you really want to help, you can help me press out the tortillas or cut the vegetables," I said as I put the ice cream in the freezer on top of the frozen veggies. I made sure she noticed that I washed my hands.

Nothing tastes better than freshly made tortillas. They are sweeter and more delicate than the store bought kind; they also remind me of my grandmother. No meal she presided over ever had store bought tortillas. I still can't think of commercial tortillas as tortillas, I have to think of them as something else in order to eat them. But the real thing, I can eat until there's no masa left to make more.

I pulled three rings from my jeans pocket and handed them to her. "Your wedding set," I said. "You should probably get used to wearing them now. And yes, I know they don't look like much, but these are supposed to be your replacement set, remember?"

She looked at them as she put them on and said, "Three?"

"I talked to a jeweler. She said the trend is to have two eternity bands go on the outside. The one with three stones goes in the middle. Guess you get to be trendy," I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

"OK. Not very practical for bounty hunting. The middle ring will snag on stuff."

"You can put them in your pocket or leave them in your purse when you're working. I thought you were going to be in the office working or working from here until this really hit the ground."

"I was hoping not to do that, but you're probably right. I should work from home and remote my work to Ranger or Alvarez or whoever. By the way, you have nice taste. Thanks for picking them out."

I didn't pick them out, they were part of the deal that Ranger had brokered with the government agency. The rings were complete with tracking devices in the event she got lost or misplaced. We all figured chances were high she might lose one ring, probable she could lose two, doubtful she'd lose three.

"Do you have any knife skills in the kitchen?" I asked knowing that she didn't have other knife skills. Besides, I wanted to side step the fact we were both wearing wedding rings now; at least they weren't a matched set.

"Sort of."

"Good. I need for you to cut up an onion for the salsa," I said moving a box of tissues within easy reach. If you aren't fast or prepared, they can do a number on your tear ducts.

"Salsa comes from a jar."

"Not the good stuff. There are some things you really need to learn about eating."

I showed her the knife block, where I keep the cutting boards, and put a white onion in front of her. "Do your best. Try to get the pieces small and uniform."

"Don't you have a food processor?"

"Preparation is the relaxing part of cooking."

"Oh."

Her attempt to shop the onion looked more like a massacre of the thing, you'd think she never held a knife before.

I stepped behind her and said, "Let me show you."

I put my right hand over hers to change the angle she was holding the knife and aligned the onion. "Move the food into the knife, not the other way around. Less chance for you to get hurt." I took her left hand and curved the fingers into a claw like position. "This is easier, at first it is awkward, but it really does work."

I moved the knife for her a couple of times until she started to get the feeling for what she was doing. I made the mistake of breathing in the scent of her shampoo while she was working; it was clean and crisp. It made me think domestic thoughts I put away years ago, thoughts that made me want a different life.

I took a couple of steps back and said, "When you are done with that, you need to do about six tomatoes."

"Six?"

"Six. You want to eat, you have to help. Didn't you learn to cook when you were growing up?"

"My mother is a perfectionist. I was never good enough to meet her standards. She gave up on me when I was about thirteen or fourteen."

"I'm not a perfectionist, so you're safe."

After she destroyed one of the tomatoes I asked, "How are you at pinching off ping pong ball sized amounts of dough?"

"I can do that. Why?"

"That's how much big the balls need to make the tortillas using a press."

She made several similarly sized balls of dough while I finished the tomatoes, garlic and cilantro. I don't see how she has survived all these years without knowing which side of the knife is sharp.

~x~x~

Chris Russo had been looking forward to a tour of the garage for a couple of weeks; it had been put off until the rest of the house was done. Hector still hadn't gotten to the garage to take down my Burlesque Babes calendar or 'improve my stereo'. I have an old computer and backup drive filled with MP3s of most of the music I've ever purchased or borrowed. I set the thing up several months ago and just let it shuffle. You never know what you're going to hear. Sometimes you get disco, sometimes Patsy Cline, heavy metal, big band, opera has been known to show up, and so has Tejano. I like variety in all things. Besides, I don't always want to expect what the next song is going to be, surprise can be a good thing.

He dawdled and looked over the tools, oils stains, and parts bins.

"You really take this seriously, don't you?" he asked.

"Love of my life," I said. It was my standard answer. Stephanie was standing a little too close to me, and got me in the ribs with her elbow. "Ok, the other love of my life, sorry Nieves." I kissed her on the temple and looked for a way out of the garage.

"How did you get started?" he asked.

"Tell you what, why don't we go inside and talk? If you want to stay for dinner there's more than enough."

That is how I wound up with the youngest son of the syndicate at my dinner table.

"So Stephanie, how did you get so lucky as to marry a man who cooks so well?" Christopher asked.

"Luck of the draw. Actually, I didn't know he liked to cook until recently," she said.

"It was kind of a whirlwind relationship. We're still adjusting to the 'M' word," I said passing a plate of tortillas to Chris. I still have a hard time saying the words married, wife or husband, especially if they apply to my own life.

She smiled and looked down. The less said the better.

"Where was the honeymoon?" he asked.

Stephanie looked at me and then into her wine glass. I reached over and took her hand in mine and said, "It was more important to be married than to have an actual honeymoon. We were kind of in a hurry to be married." God, wasn't that just the truth of it?

"I can help," Chris said.

Stephanie started to say something, but I squeezed her hand, you never know how these things might go.

"How?" I asked flashing a smile at Stephanie.

"We've got a family place in Mexico. It's along the Atlantic, they call it the Mayan Rivera. Every summer a bunch of us go down and just hang out for a couple of weeks. It's just family and friends, no kids."

"The beach?" Stephanie asked. "I love the beach. Won't the others mind? I mean, we only know you."

"Not a problem. I'll get you guys introduced around before we go. Dad's always trying to get me to invite new people, he'll be thrilled when I call him."

Perfect. This is what we've been hoping for but didn't expect to get any time soon. There'd been speculation it could take six months or longer to get invited to the compound.

"Just cover your own airfare down and whatever for incidentals and souvenirs, the food and lodging is on us," Chris said. "We've got a bunch of little casitas and there are some boats we leave at the pier. Since I'm doing this favor for you, I can get a deal on that bike in the garage, can't I?"

"I hadn't really planned on parting with it so soon," I said. I hadn't even ridden it a handful of times yet. "But I think we can work something out."

"Great. Oh, you do have passports, right?"

I nodded. I still had a year left on it before I needed to renew. Since I was traveling as me, there really wasn't any need to change things.

"Mine's still in my maiden name," Stephanie said. "Problem?"

"You haven't changed it yet, honey?" I asked. I knew damned well she didn't even have a passport.

"There's an unspoken year of grace from the time women get married to change everything, you know that."

"Probably everything should match before we leave the country, Nieves," I said smiling. Since she opened that door, now we were going to have to get the paperwork machine rolling at the office. It would have been easier to expedite a passport in her own, legal name. Now we would either need to get a fraudulent marriage license to get a real passport in her assumed name or we were going to secure a fraudulent passport. Why couldn't she have left it alone? Why?

"I'll check with my dad to find out if they've set a date. I'll call you when I know. The more the merrier," he said taking a long drag on his glass of sangria.

~x~x~

"You don't mind if we call it an early night?" I asked Chris around nine o'clock. "Got to be up early for church in the morning."

Stephanie shot me a look. Before she could say or ask anything I said, "Usually we get it over with on Saturday nights."

"No problem. I should be going anyway," he said rising from his chair. "I can see myself out, you two look comfortable."

It really wasn't that comfortable. I had Stephanie sitting on my lap, head on my shoulder. She was trying to do the whole needy female thing and it looked good, but my dick was searching for relief especially when she started squirming to improve her purchase.

After Chris left she launched herself off my lap and went to another part of the sofa. Then she asked, "You were kidding about church, right?"

"No. I go every weekend; some weeks it is the only time I get for peace or contemplation. I usually go to confession first on Saturday to get absolved of the week's many sins, go to church right afterward and then I go and sin again."

"Pass."

"You were raised Catholic, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"You're going with. It will prove to be important later; this is a religious family we're infiltrating. If they bug things, and they will, they won't bug a church or a chapel. It's best to establish the habit now. Besides, I make killer pancakes after I get home."

She rolled her eyes and said, "It's outside the Burg right? I mean, I don't want to worry about running into my mother or grandmother there."

"Not unless they go to the Spanish services, you'll be just fine."

"Spanish?"

"Yeah, I prefer hearing the mass said in Spanish. Problem?"

"I guess not. I tune it out in English, I can tune it out just as easily in Spanish I guess."

~x~x~

We got the dishes done and the kitchen cleared. Stephanie was getting ready to grab her purse to leave for the night; she'd had a little more wine with dinner and during the cleanup than she realized. I was tired and really didn't want to drive for an hour just to have to play tag team with her car again.

I took the purse from her hands and put it back on the table. Then I walked her into the wall so she couldn't leave easily.

"You're staying," I said quietly into her ear.

"No. I'm going. I can drive myself home, Manny," she said as her ass hit the wall.

"Staying," I said again and then I kissed her with an intensity that left no question what I had in mind. I hadn't intended to kiss her at the beginning of the evening, at least not like this. There had been an entire evening of lingering touches, her sitting on my lap, squirming to get comfortable and looks between us. My control was about gone for the night.

"But you told me a long time ago you aren't an opportunist," she said as she moved her head away. "You also said you weren't that into me."

"That's one of the differences between Ranger and me, Stephanie," I said lips on her neck. "Ranger tells people he's an opportunist. It keeps people, women specifically, off balance. I won't tell anyone I'm an opportunist, but I seldom pass on an opportunity that presents itself to me. You are a definite opportunity."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked. I could tell her head was beginning to clear. Adrenaline can do that.

"Easy, I take things as they come and I make no promises. If I make a promise, it usually has an expiration date on it," I said nibbling on her earlobe.

"Come again?" she asked just as I moved the collar of her shirt over and exposed the top of her shoulder.

"Do you know why I told you I wasn't into you?" I asked as I laced my hand in her hair and began to lick the shell of her ear. "Because you are exactly my type; everything from the color of your hair to the attitude. You put off such a good girl vibe that I'm convinced you'd be willing to do amazingly bad things. I need you to know that I want you; but only for the here and now." How much of this was hormones and proximity was anyone's guess; it could also have been the result of too much sangria.

She didn't think about it, she didn't need to. She pushed me back a couple of inches and then slapped me; it wasn't hard and I probably deserved it. Unfortunately it was turning me on, so I pushed my hips into hers.

I grasped the offending hand, pinned it above her head, pinned her lower body with my hips, and said, "Now that you have that out of your system, you will hear me out. I don't believe in monogamy as a long term situation with anyone. However, for now, we are thrown together and I want you to know that if and when we have sex, that's all it is going to be. There is no emotional attachment on my part; if you develop one, you'll need to deal with it on your own time."

She didn't say anything.

"I am not going to promise to be faithful to you when this is over. I am not going to promise not to look at other women or not flirt."

She wiggled herself free and stepped to the side; too bad because I enjoyed the wiggling.

"As to tonight, you're staying. I already took your keys from your purse." She said nothing, just glared, so I went on. "There are two beds available; mine and the sofa. I own the house; therefore, I sleep in my bed. You are invited to sleep on the sofa, it does open out to a bed; it isn't comfortable, but it's a bed. If you decide you want to be more comfortable or warmer and you wander into my bed, I take that as implied consent."

"What is implied consent?" she asked finally raising her eyes to meet mine.

"Plain and simple it means if you get into bed with me, you are willing to fuck. We may not, but you are willing as soon as your ass hits the mattress. If you rub up against me, if you fondle me, or if you touch me in any way, you have escalated the game and you will be on the receiving end. If you opt to stay on the sofa, I won't go in search of you for either warmth or creature comforts. You control where you sleep; once you make a decision, I will honor it.

"And don't slap me again for being honest and upfront with you. I know the pain of being lied to and cheated on which is why we are even having this discussion. The next time you slap me, you are indicating you want to play and play rough. I enjoy it and I can make sure you enjoy that, too."

She continued to glare and squirm. She was keeping quiet which was a huge surprise to me; probably biding her time to bolt out the door.

"Remember, this is an acting gig for both of us. We will need to kiss, touch and appear affectionate in public. I have no problem getting you frustrated and letting you simmer there for days. I can also tell you I can offer you release when you most need it and crave it; but you will beg for it. I don't make promises I won't keep. Decide what you want and how much you want it and we can negotiate."

"Bastard. Let me have my keys."

"No keys, you're staying; it's late. And yeah, I'm a bastard, but at least I'm being honest with you, unlike the other men who've been in your life." My aim was true, it struck straight to her heart.

"Do you believe in monogamy?" she asked.

"Yes, I do when two people are in love," I said.

"We aren't in love."

"No, we aren't and we won't be. I'm not wired for those kinds of emotions." I was a long, long time ago but those wires had been cut. "For now, for the sake of the job, if things get started between us, I'll be monogamous. So you know, I expect the same. I won't share you with anyone for any reason."

"So when this is over?"

"When this is over, the job will be simply a pleasant memory and you go back to your life like it was."

"It won't mean anything to you?"

"No."

"If you were in love, would it?"

"You're begging the question."

"I know. Have you ever been in love?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell me about her?"

"I've already said too much." I started to walk to the living room. "I'll help you pull the sofa bed out and find some sheets and a blanket for it."

"It's supposed to be cold tonight."

"It's an electric blanket."

The next morning I was alone in bed, much to my disappointment. I heard Stephanie making some noise in the living room. I put on a pair of sweats and an undershirt before I wandered into the living room. She was stripping the sheets from the sofa.

I asked "Why don't we leave the sheets on the sofa for the next time?"

"Next time?"

I nodded. I looked into her eyes, they were almost a blue-grey, very cold and stormy. I hadn't seen them quite that color before. Then again, I'd never really looked at them that closely.

"Come on, we need to get to church. It's time to get a move on."

"But I don't have anything nice to wear."

"My closet is full of your clothes. You have something clean that fits, I'm sure of it."

She gave me another dirty look before she headed to the bathroom.

I heard her voice over the shower saying, "I'd rather negotiate sex than go to church."

So, she'd thought about things last night. Maybe she wasn't as far gone as I'd thought. Negotiations, now that sounds like a reason to stay home on a Sunday morning. Better yet, it was going to be time to stack the deck in my favor.

"Hey Nieves," I called through the bathroom door. "You're gonna want to wear pants to church. We're taking the bike out this morning."

Yes, a long bike ride after church on an unimproved road; that'll go a long way toward negotiations.


A/N: thanks as always for reading and reviewing!